Ugly scenes erupted in shops across the country on Black Friday(Reuters)

Black Friday became the biggest day ever for shopping in Britain as consumers took full advantage of the discount bonanza.

Spending in store was up 18% on a year-on-year basis, while online spending was double what it typically was and up 38% on the same day in 2013, making it the biggest day on record for shopping, according to data gathered by Barclaycard.

Consumers spent £810m on the day that has made its way to the UK from the US – up 21% on last year's event – according to the data.

Such was the total online spending on the day, it actually boosted the proportion of online spending, as opposed to total spending, in 2014 by 4% to 25.8%.

Barclaycard is not the only financial institute to highlight the benefits Black Friday brought the UK.

Visa Europe said the shopping day pushed Britons to spend a record amount in November this year and that it could lead to the fastest rate of growth in consumer spending since 2010.

It said household spending rose at its fastest annual rate since August, by 2%, from 1.4% in October.